The Egoist eBook

Dale. It was a pleasant and romantic story, and
it put most people in good humour with the county’s
favourite, as his choice of a portionless girl of
no position would not have done without the shock
of astonishment at the conduct of Miss Durham, and
the desire to feel that so prevailing a gentleman
was not in any degree pitiable. Constantia was
called “that mad thing”. Laetitia
broke forth in novel and abundant merits; and one
of the chief points of requisition in relation to
Patterne—­a Lady Willoughby who would entertain
well and animate the deadness of the Hall, became
a certainty when her gentleness and liveliness and
exceeding cleverness were considered. She was
often a visitor at the Hall by Lady Patterne’s
express invitation, and sometimes on these occasions
Willoughby was there too, superintending the filling
up of his laboratory, though he was not at home to
the county; it was not expected that he should be yet.
He had taken heartily to the pursuit of science, and
spoke of little else. Science, he said, was in
our days the sole object worth a devoted pursuit.
But the sweeping remark could hardly apply to Laetitia,
of whom he was the courteous, quiet wooer you behold
when a man has broken loose from an unhappy tangle
to return to the lady of his first and strongest affections.

Some months of homely courtship ensued, and then,
the decent interval prescribed by the situation having
elapsed, Sir Willoughby Patterne left his native land
on a tour of the globe.

CHAPTER IV

LAETITIA DALE

That was another surprise to the county.

Let us not inquire into the feelings of patiently
starving women; they must obtain some sustenance of
their own, since, as you perceive, they live; evidently
they are not in need of a great amount of nourishment;
and we may set them down for creatures with a rush-light
of animal fire to warm them. They cannot have
much vitality who are so little exclamatory.
A corresponding sentiment of patient compassion, akin
to scorn, is provoked by persons having the opportunity
for pathos, and declining to use it. The public
bosom was open to Laetitia for several weeks, and
had she run to it to bewail herself she would have
been cherished in thankfulness for a country drama.
There would have been a party against her, cold people,
critical of her pretensions to rise from an unrecognized
sphere to be mistress of Patterne Hall, but there
would also have been a party against Sir Willoughby,
composed of the two or three revolutionists, tired
of the yoke, which are to be found in England when
there is a stir; a larger number of born sympathetics,
ever ready to yield the tear for the tear; and here
and there a Samaritan soul prompt to succour poor
humanity in distress. The opportunity passed
undramatized. Laetitia presented herself at church
with a face mildly devout, according to her custom,
and she accepted invitations to the Hall, she assisted
at the reading of Willoughby’s letters to his
family, and fed on dry husks of him wherein her name
was not mentioned; never one note of the summoning
call for pathos did this young lady blow.